In a garment factory, once the garment is sewn, it remains the job of the inspector to smooth out the finished garment and overlap the various closable openings such as a shirt front or cuff and to snap closed the snap fasteners therearound.
The inspector is usually seated in front of a large flat table and to close the fasteners, she must exert downward force with her hand against the snap fasteners to snap them. Where the fasteners are at some distance from the edge of the table, the inspector must stand because considerable force is required to snap the fasteners shut. As a result, the closing of the fasteners is a relatively arduous job. This is particularly true where the fasteners are plentiful in each garment as they are with infantswear. For instance, in infant's creepers the openings along the inside of the legs and crotch are closed with as many as a dozen snap fasteners. Still more may run the length of the front opening.
Aside from the arduous and exhausting nature of the closing job, the repeated impact on, for instance, the thumb or wrist of the inspector, can cause repetitive motion fatigue which can lead to chronic pain, etc.
The prior art has been flagrantly unsympathetic to the need for relief to the inspector. There have merely been hand tools for closing fasteners such as are shown in the Perline et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,096,618 issued Jun. 27, 1978 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,189,822 issued Feb. 26, 1980.
Strips of spaced fasteners mounted on tapes have been closed by being drawn between two pressure rolls. This is shown in the Deshaies U.S. Pat. No. 3,181,219 issued May. 4, 1965.
All the while there have been hand-held air-powered machines for applying fasteners, (such as nails) which machines have been triggered by a protruding pressure rod in the front end. This type of machine is shown in the Osborne U.S. Pat. No. 2,854,953 issued Oct. 7, 1958. Yet there has been no satisfactory relief for the garment inspector.
There is a need for such relief. The present invention is directed to this need.